July | 2012 | Guy Portman's Blog

National Lottery Scratch Cards

Jul 27 2012

A little an hour ago I was walking back from the supermarket, a shopping bag clasped in each hand. One might expect that my thoughts would have been focused on the city’s forthcoming sporting extravaganza; perhaps even the Danny Boyle inspired opening ceremony, merely hours away; but they were not. Like the greying sky above me my mood was a sombre one; the reason my seemingly ever growing dependence on National Lottery scratch cards.

It had all started so brightly some months previous with my first purchase, a £2 Diamond 7 that had revealed £10. The act of punching the air with delight and jumping up and down jubilantly seems but a distant memory now.

Since that day scratch card purchases have become a daily occurrence, at first it was merely one a day then two and today that has escalated to a variety of different games played at intervals through each and every day. Recognising the stupidity of this exercise I had promised myself yesterday that this growing irrational dependency based around ever diminishing returns had to cease. After all what better time could there be to stop than the start of the Olympics with its promise of excitement, far in excess of that likely offered by National Lottery scratch cards instant gratification. However as I approached the till assuredly to pay for my food items, I noticed a man stacking a roll of £1 scratch cards into a display case, the cards an abundance of inviting iridescent colour. I was unfamiliar with this particular game and I stared transfixed at this new prospect of salvation with a top prize of £100k.

Deciding to make an exception to my no scratch card resolution on this one occasion, I purchase fifteen of them plus an additional two Diamond 7’s for good luck. On arriving home I hastily scratch the cards, desperately pleading for a halt to my recent ill fortune (Last 17 games with no win). Predictably none of the scratch cards reveal a prize. I rip them into pieces and throw them in the bin. There is an increasing suspicion that the promised odds which vary depending on the game from 1 in 4.46 to 1 in 4.9 cannot possibly be valid. Despite this recent run of bad luck I cannot diminish the sense of excitement that these games provided in the early days, the suspense and promise of redemption in an increasingly predictable existence.

Picture two is of a scratched Diamond 7 card with a £2 prize (c.f. Bottom row, one 7 & 2 diamonds). It was apparent from the beginning of this exercise in futility that diamonds are not only a girl’s best friend. I will miss this game the most.

Countdown to London 2012

Jul 20 2012

London 2012 is merely a week away and it appears that nearly everything is ready to go, including:

Venues – completed.
Warehousing – UPS is braced to move >30m items.
Transportation – special Olympic routes set up throughout the city.

Even the weather is towing the line, for after months of nearly constant rain (including the wettest April & June on record) a warm front is approaching across the Atlantic.

And then there’s G4S, the world’s leading provider of security solutions, who were awarded the contract for the security of the Olympic venues way back in 2008. G4S had promised to provide 10,000 staff to secure the games, but merely days from the start of London 2012, they inform us that they have merely 4,000 staff. Actually it seems that I am mistaken in that figure; my companion sitting next to me is waving yesterday’s Sun newspaper inches from my face whilst pointing animatedly at an article about how two of G4S’s staff members have been arrested for being suspected illegal immigrants. That leaves 3,998 then.

Days after the announcement of the shortfall in staff, G4S’s deputy boasted that the company could handle two Olympics; this despite the fact that it is glaringly obvious to everyone else that G4S can handle only 0.4 Olympics. Fortunately the British army will now be providing the shortfall in security for the Olympic venues, so we are all able to emit a communal sigh of relief. A number of jokes have been appearing on the internet about this. You may have already have heard them but I include them for those who haven’t.

Q). How many G4S staff does it take to secure the Olympics?

A). An army.

Q). How many G4S staff does it take to change a light bulb?

A). Six soldiers and a policeman.

With any luck the whole debacle will soon be forgotten and in a week’s time we will be enjoying Danny Boyle’s (director of Slum Dog Millionaire) £27m opening ceremony extravaganza, which will be seen by 80k spectators and an estimated 1bn worldwide. The Olympic stadium is to be transformed into an English countryside scene, complete with 70 sheep, 12 horses, 10 chickens, 3 cows, 2 goats, 8 geese and 3 dogs. Let’s just hope that G4S aren’t providing the animals.

Have you had a chance to hear G4S’s anthem, if not here it is: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b4pSztQk2_0

Actuaries

Jul 13 2012

The work of actuaries entails assessing the financial implications of future events. Though their work is conducted in a variety of sectors they are most commonly associated with the insurance industry, where they utilise mathematical algorithms to evaluate risks for insurance policies.

An actuarial career is often voted as one of the top professions in America, based on income, job security, stress etc. However despite the obvious benefits of the actuarial vocation, actuaries are on occasion ridiculed by others. This is in part due to the fact that they are often viewed as being geeks; spectacle wearing number crunchers with very limited social skills and perhaps also because we do not understand the complex nature of their work. Maybe there’s even a little jealously at their high earnings and level of job security. The actuarial jokes I have come across include:

Q: How do actuaries liven up their office parties?

A: They invite an accountant.

And

Q: What do actuaries use as contraception?

A: Their personalities.

Though the ridiculing of actuaries amuses many, we all surely appreciate that actuaries are universally extremely intelligent. The actuarial professional examinations are regarded as the most demanding of any of the professions. Actuaries have even been described as ‘prophets of the future’, for their highly evolved scientific minds are able to offer unique insights into the future based on statistical laws. These are often fascinating; for example how is life expectancy going to increase in the future and by how much and what are the risks of certain diseases and accidents for an individual with a certain set of behavioural patterns.

It is this unique way of observing and understanding the world, in addition to their perceived behavioural quirks that led me to choose an actuary as the main character for my book, Charles Middleworth. His name is Adrian and he is highly intelligent, very well educated and well paid, but also set in his ways and some might argue at times rather peculiar.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/CharlesMiddleworth

Actuaries haven’t generally been embraced in popular culture let alone literature though there a few exceptions. Preferred Risk, by Frederik Pohl and Lester del Rey (using the pseudonym Edson McCann), describes a dystopian future dominated by the insurance industry. Manga enthusiasts may be familiar with Kurosagi Corpse Delivery Service, in which a sinister actuary uses statistical data to predetermine scenarios that will most likely result in certain individuals dying.

The Evolution of Social Media

Jul 06 2012

Social media really began to emerge with the advent of Blogger in 99. The following decade saw a proliferation of social media platforms (Friendster 2002, LinkedIn & MySpace 03, Facebook 04 & Twitter 06). Today there are an estimated one billion social media users worldwide and with social media only being in its adolescence this is likely to increase exponentially in the years ahead. Social media has become as much a part of many of our lives as running water and electricity. Some have even gone as far as to argue that some of us are now addicted to it. Researchers have warned of the rise of ‘hyper-networking’; which they define as students who spend more than three hours per school day on social networking sites. Are the adults of tomorrow becoming socially stunted as a result of this affliction; unable to communicate effectively?

Then of course there are the physical evolutionary ramifications of this ongoing transformation in human behaviour. Close your eyes and picture what a human might look like in the future after innumerable generations of ever increasing social media usage.

Sitting at a futuristic desk in front of a holographic screen is a sedentary creature with an enormous skull; evolved for the purpose of assimilating an endless stream of information. Beneath the desk the creature’s legs are visible, shrivelled from inactivity. An elongated thumb extends outwards, effortlessly rearranging the information on the screen in front of it. An alarm beep signifies that it is dinner time. Barely a moment later a vacuum sealed bag is deposited on the futuristic human’s lap. With several unseemly slurps that would have horrified many previous generations of humans, it deposits the processed mushy contents into its mouth and swallows them instantaneously. It is only now that I notice the receded chin; no doubt a result of humans no longer needing to chew.

Not once during this whole episode does the futuristic human’s attention shift from the screen in front of it.

Perhaps my imagination is getting the better of me and at any rate it is about time I was getting back to Twitter.

Archive - July 2012

National Lottery Scratch Cards

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Countdown to London 2012

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Actuaries

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Archive - July 2012

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